Good afternoon and thank you for being here.

I arrived in Geneva Tuesday evening straight from Gaza.

This was my third visit since the war started. Today we are almost 70 days into this war, and every time I go back, I think it cannot get worse.

But every time I witness more misery, more grief and sadness and I have the feeling that Gaza is not really a habitable place anymore.

On this visit I stayed in Rafah in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt.

Now, Rafah is the epicenter of the displacement of Gazans. This is where over 1 million people have fled to the Governate, and most of them have been moved more than once since the beginning of the war.

Rafah has quadrupled its number of people overnight.

It is traditionally a place where the poorest in the Gaza Strip used to live, lacking the infrastructure and the basics. I’m saying this, because it is not the place to host more than 1 million people, and certainly not the entire Gaza Strip.

People are now pushed into this area, which does not represent in terms of space, more than one quarter of the Gaza Strip.

One UNRWA warehouse that became a shelter is now home to more than 30,000 people. This is a place I visited, families live in tiny spaces separated only by blankets or plastic sheeting since the beginning of the war. But what has changed compared to my last visit, is that while before, we used to have overcrowded shelters, more than 1 million people are living in UN premises, when I visited this warehouse, we had tens of thousands of people outside. Which is in fact the extension of the overcrowding taking place in the warehouse.

The lucky ones are those who have a place inside our premises, especially now that winter has started. But the others have absolutely nowhere to go, they live in the open, they live in the cold, in the mud and under the rain.

Everywhere you look, is congested with makeshift shelters. Everywhere you go, people are desperate, hungry and terrified.

People – and this is also something completely new – people are stopping aid trucks, taking the food, and eating it right away. This is how desperate and hungry they are. I witnessed this firsthand. Just to re-explain, because it is difficult to comprehend, because of the immensity of the needs, and because of the little aid trickling into Gaza. It is becoming more and more difficult to reach our shelters, which are overcrowded, because outside you have tens of thousands of people who are desperately in the same kind of need. They also need to be supplied and assisted.

This has nothing to do with aid diversion. This has to do with a total despair that people are expressing in the Gaza Strip.

Hunger is something people in Gaza have never ever known before. But hunger has now emerged over the last few weeks and we meet more and more people who haven’t eaten for one, two or three days. And this is the reason why, we see people stopping sometimes trucks, downloading and eating on the spot.

Now, let me say a few words on the safety in Gaza. As of today, we have 135 UNRWA staff who have been killed since the beginning of the war.

And you’ve heard me many times say: no place has been spared, not even the places that normally should be protected by the laws of war.

I was absolutely horrified yesterday when I saw a video circulating of an UNRWA school being blown up in northern Gaza.

Schools, medical and UN facilities are not and should never, ever be a target. Unfortunately, in Gaza, they have quite often become just that.

We have, since the beginning of the war, recorded when it comes to United Nations (UNRWA) premises about 150 situations where our premises have been hit directly or indirectly. This has led to the killing of more than 270 people, and the injury of more than 1,000.

Some of the survivors in these places have had no choice but to stay in these shelters, despite the fact that they have been hit. Why? Just because, again, there is absolutely nowhere to go in the Gaza Strip. And let me also remind, as far as the UN is concerned, we keep sharing the coordinates of all our locations with all parties to the conflict. Both the Israeli Army but also the de-facto in Gaza.

Now, let me also highlight that people in Gaza believe that their lives are not equal to other lives, and they have the feeling that in reality, human rights or international humanitarian law does not really apply to them.

There is a deep, deep sense and feeling of betrayal. There is a sense of feeling that people have been abandoned by the International Community.

In reality, like anyone else, in Gaza people just long for safety and stability. They just long for life, they just want to have a normal life, but they are very far away right now from this normal life.

What continues to shock me is the ever-increasing levels of de-humanization, the lack of empathy and humanity; the fact that people can laugh, cheer, and mock any type of wrongdoing that we observe in this war.

When in fact what is happening in Gaza should outrage anyone, should make us all re-think our values.

I think, this is also a make-or-break moment for all of us and for our shared humanity.

Since we are here with you members of the media. Let me thank you and your colleagues in the region and beyond for covering what the people of Gaza are going through. But not only the people of Gaza, anyone in the region, because it is really impacting anyone and beyond.

As you all know, this war is also being fought on TV screens and on social media, it is also a media war.

I am horrified at the smear campaigns that target Palestinians and those who provide aid to them.

And on that, I am asking you to help us push back against misinformation and inaccuracies. I know that some of you are constantly fact checking, fact checking is key if we want accurate information.

Just always make sure you verify and debunk repeated and sometimes vulgar accusations. As Commissioner General of UNRWA, I have experienced this more than once since our Agency is also one of the targets in this war.

Before I close, let me share the latest on the situation in the West Bank where we are recording – and we should not forget - the highest levels of violence in nearly two decades, since the second intifada, with record high fatalities, injuries and arrests. Basically, there is no single day without an incursion, a security operation, leading to the killing of Palestinians.

Fear among residents in the West Bank is growing, and we have started to observe some displacement of Palestinians.

Significant and increasing settler violence including the use of firearms is also spreading. We all know that a lot of arms now have been distributed in the West Bank.

But also, and here we have a perfect storm in the making economically and financially. This includes the lack of jobs in Israel, Israeli Arabs are not shopping anymore in the West Bank, there is no movement anymore from one city to another and the Palestinian Authority has difficulties in paying salaries. It is economically a perfect storm in the making in the West Bank.

Let me end with the three asks I shared yesterday when I addressed the Global Refugee Forum:

First, a humanitarian ceasefire. I welcome the decision, with the support of 153 UN Member States at the General Assembly. It is now time that this call for a humanitarian ceasefire be translated into reality.

Number two: the siege on Gaza must be lifted and what we need today is not just 100 trucks, or 200 trucks. We need meaningful, at scale, uninterrupted and unconditional flow of basic commodities into the Gaza Strip. This is the only way to reverse the negative impact of the siege.

We, as humanitarians alone, will not succeed to cover all the needs of a desperate population if the crossings are not properly open and if the commercial sector is not properly coming back into Gaza. They have been denied any access now for 70 days.

And last, we have to make sure, and I know we have said it since day one, and I know it is a call for all of us, but International Humanitarian Law should still have a meaning. It needs to have a meaning in the context of Gaza, it cannot just be reinterpreted “à la carte” . This war also has rules, and it is time these rules are properly applied.

To conclude, in suffering there is absolutely no competition.

I believe that ultimately in this war there will be no winners.

The longer this war goes on, the larger the loss, but beyond that, the deeper the grief. So I think, like many of my colleagues do, that there is absolutely no alternative, to a proper, genuine and political process to end, once and for all, the longest unresolved conflict in the world. Seventy five years without a solution, it has not been a priority over the last decade. It is time that this becomes a proper priority.

To end, Israelis and Palestinians deserve statehood, peace, and stability. Peace and stability, that’s what the region deserves also.

ENDs-

14 December 2023

Philippe Lazzarini

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